dark women
my sisters and mothers
though i speak with the tongues
of men and of angels and
have not charity . . .
in this hall
dark women,
my sisters and mothers,
i stand
and let the church say
let the church say
let the church say
AMEN.
5 the reading
i look into none of my faces
and do the best i can.
the human hair between us
stretches but does not break.
i slide myself along it and
love them, love them all.
6 it is late
it is late
in white america.
i stand
in the light of the
7-11
looking out toward
the church
and for a moment only
i feel the reverberation
of myself
in white america
a black cat
in the belfry
hanging
and
ringing.
shapeshifter poems
1
the legend is whispered
in the women’s tent
how the moon when she rises
full
follows some men into themselves
and changes them there
the season is short
but dreadful shapeshifters
they wear strange hands
they walk through the houses
at night their daughters
do not know them
2
who is there to protect her
from the hands of the father
not the windows which see and
say nothing not the moon
that awful eye not the woman
she will become with her
scarred tongue who who who the owl
laments into the evening who
will protect her this prettylittlegirl
3
if the little girl lies
still enough
shut enough
hard enough
shapeshifter may not
walk tonight
the full moon may not
find him here
the hair on him
bristling
rising
up
4
the poem at the end of the world
is the poem the little girl breathes
into her pillow the one
she cannot tell the one
there is no one to hear this poem
is a political poem is a war poem is a
universal poem but is not about
these things this poem
is about one human heart this poem
is the poem at the end of the world
california lessons
1 geography
over there is asia
watching from the water
astounded as siddhartha.
over there, asia,
waiting in the water
for what is surely turning
on the wheel. here
is california
swinging from the edge
of the darkening of america
and over there, sitting,
patient as gautama
enlightened, in the water,
is asia.
2 history
guard your language
what bird remembers
the songs
the miwok sang?
guard your life
pomo
shasta
esalen
peoples
not places
3 botany
“all common figs
can produce fertile seeds
if the flowers
are pollinated.”
in concord
in 1985
was hung
from a fig tree.
“the fruit
is dark
and sweet.”
4 semantics
in 1942
almost all
the japanese
were concentrated
into camps.
intern ment
but no doctor came.
5 metaphysics
question:what is karma?
answer:there is a wheel
and it is turning.
quilting
poems 1987–1990
for maude meehan
homegirl
quilting
somewhere in the unknown world
a yellow eyed woman
sits with her daughter
quilting.
some other where
alchemists mumble over pots.
their chemistry stirs
into science. their science
freezes into stone.
in the unknown world
the woman
threading together her need
and her needle
nods toward the smiling girl
remember
this will keep us warm.
how does this poem end?
do the daughters’ daughters quilt?
do the alchemists practice their tables?
do the worlds continue spinning
away from each other forever?
log cabin
i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother’s itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning language everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.
note to myself
it’s a black thing you wouldn’t understand
(t-shirt)
amira baraka—i refuse to be judged by white men.
or defined. and i see
that even the best believe
they have that right,
believe that
what they say i mean
is what i mean
as if words only matter in the world they know,
as if when i choose words
i must choose those
that they can live with
even if something inside me
cannot live,
as if my story is
so trivial
we can forget together,
as if i am not scarred,
as if my family enemy
does not look like them,
as if i have not reached
across our history to touch,
to soothe on more than one
occasion
and will again,
although the merely human
is denied me still
and i am now no longer beast
but saint.
poem beginning in no and ending in yes
for hector peterson, age 13
first child killed in soweto riot, 1976
no
light there was no light at first around the head
of the young boy only the slim stirring of soweto
only the shadow of voices students and soldiers
practicing their lessons and one and one cannot be even
two in afrikaans then before the final hush
in the schoolyard in soweto there was the burning of his name
into the most amazing science the most ancient prophesy
let there be light and there was light around the young
boy h
ector peterson dead in soweto and still among us
yes
february 11, 1990
for Nelson Mandela and Winnie
nothing so certain as justice.
nothing so certain as time.
so he would wait seven days, or years
or twenty-seven even,
firm in his certainty.
nothing so patient as truth.
nothing so faithful as now.
walk out old chief, old husband,
enter again your own wife.
at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989
among the rocks
at walnut grove
your silence drumming
in my bones,
tell me your names.
nobody mentioned slaves
and yet the curious tools
shine with your fingerprints.
nobody mentioned slaves
but somebody did this work
who had no guide, no stone,
who moulders under rock.
tell me your names,
tell me your bashful names
and i will testify.
the inventory lists ten slaves
but only men were recognized.
among the rocks
at walnut grove
some of these honored dead
were dark
some of these dark
were slaves
some of these slaves
were women
some of them did this
honored work.
tell me your names
foremothers, brothers,
tell me your dishonored names.
here lies
here lies
here lies
here lies
hear
slave cabin, sotterly plantation, maryland, 1989
in this little room
note carefully
aunt nanny’s bench
three words that label
things
aunt
is my parent’s sister
nanny
my grandmother
bench
the board at which
i stare
the soft curved polished
wood
that held her bottom
after the long days
without end
without beginning
when she aunt nanny sat
feet dead against the dirty floor
humming for herself humming
her own sweet human name
white lady
a street name for cocaine
wants my son
wants my niece
wants josie’s daughter
holds them hard
and close as slavery
what will it cost
to keep our children
what will it cost
to buy them back.
white lady
says i want you
whispers
let me be your lover
whispers
run me through your
fingers
feel me smell me taste me
love me
nobody understands you like
white lady
white lady
you have chained our sons
in the basement
of the big house
white lady
you have walked our daughters
out into the streets
white lady
what do we have to pay
to repossess our children
white lady
what do we have to owe
to own our own at last
memo
to fannie lou hamer
fannie for this
you never walked
miles through the mud
to register the vote
not for this
fannie did you stand
a wall in the hall
of justice not for these
stoned girls and boys
were you a brick
building a mississippi
building freedom
into a party not
this party fannie
where they lie eyes
cold and round as death
doing to us what even
slavery couldn’t
[from a letter written to Dr. W. E. B. Dubois by Alvin Borgquest of Clark University in Massachusetts and dated April 3, 1905:
“We are pursuing an investigation here on the subject of crying as an expression of the emotions, and should like very much to learn about its peculiarities among the colored people. We have been referred to you as a person competent to give us information on the subject. We desire especially to know about the following salient aspects: 1. Whether the Negro sheds tears. . . .”]
reply
he do
she do
they live
they love
they try
they tire
they flee
they fight
they bleed
they break
they moan
they mourn
they weep
they die
they do
they do
they do
whose side are you on?
the side of the busstop woman
trying to drag her bag
up the front steps before the doors
clang shut i am on her side
i give her exact change
and him the old man hanging by
one strap his work hand folded shut
as the bus doors i am on his side
when he needs to leave
i ring the bell i am on their side
riding the late bus into the same
someplace i am on the dark side always
the side of my daughters
the side of my tired sons
shooting star
who would i expect
to understand
what it be like
what it be like
living under a star
that hates you. you
spend a half life
looking for your own
particular heaven,
expecting to be found
one day on a sidewalk
in a bad neighborhood,
face toward the sky,
hoping some body saw
a blaze of light perhaps
a shooting star
some thing to make it mean
some thing. yo,
that brilliance there,
is it you, huey?
is it huey?
is it you?
for huey p. newton
r.i.p.
poem with rhyme in it
black people we live in the land
of ones who have cut off their own
two hands
and cannot pick up the strings
connecting them to their lives
who cannot touch whose things
have turned into planets more dangerous
than mars
but i have listened this long dark night
to the stars
black people and though the ground
be bitter as salt
they say it is not our fault
eyes
for Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama after viewing THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS, the story of Oedipus transplanted to a Southern Baptist Church, and thinking of my grandfather and the history of my people on this land. Each section opens with lyrics quoted from the musical.
“Here they are. The soft eyes open.”
—James Dickey
1.
live where you can
be happy as you can
happier than god has made your father
wandering colonus
as you have wandered selma
and montgomery
as you have circuited
the southern church halls
half-emptied by a young war
wandered from your mothers
then seeking them again again
the dim remembered breasts
offered without judgement
live
you sing to us
live where you can
2.
where have we come to now
what ground is this
what god is honored here
the fields of alabama sparkle in the sun on
broadway
five old men
sparkle in white suits
their fingers light
on one another’s back lights
proclaim The Five Blind Boys
Of Alabama five old men
black and blind
who have no names save one
what ground is this
what god
3.
i could say much to you
if you could understand me
the gods announce themselves to men
by name clarence fountain’s hand
pushes aside the air
between himself and vision
vision of resting place
of sanctuary
clarence fountain’s hand
commands the air
he has seen what he has seen